The present disclosure relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to authentication in a wireless network.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). A wireless network, for example a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), such as a Wi-Fi network (IEEE 802.11) may include an access point (AP) that may communicate with one or more stations (STAs) or mobile devices. The AP may be coupled to a network, such as the Internet, and enable a mobile device to communicate via the network (and/or communicate with other devices coupled to the access point).
In some examples, networks may be formed for content sharing between a group of mobile devices that share some commonality (e.g., are associated with a common group, organization, military unit, etc.). The mobile devices may form the network (e.g., a mesh network, a social Wi-Fi mesh network, and the like) by authenticating with other mobile devices on the network based on a common key or token associated with the commonality, e.g., a group authentication token. Conventional network authentication schemes, however, may struggle with ensuring each mobile device associated with the group has the common key or password or order to authenticate with a group mobile device on the network.
In some authentication schemes, all mobile devices may have to always possess the most common key before they can authenticate with a group mobile device (peer-to-peer authentication). In large networks (e.g., 1,000+ mobile devices), scaling may quickly become a concern as distribution of the common key or password may be particularly difficult, e.g., offline mobile devices may not be able to receive an updated key. Other authentication schemes may require a connection between the mobile station and an authentication server, which authenticates the mobile device to the network. This, however, may not be successful when the mobile device cannot establish an online connection and, when online, expends network resources.